Saturday, November 15, 2008

Grossed Out and Full Of Questions

A couple of local blog posts by David Blaine and Jacque got me thinking about the west end of town this week, so this morning I flipped a two-headed coin to help me decide between yardwork and a ride. I hadn't been on the Fish Lake Trail for a couple of years and wanted to see what it looks like these days, so I started at the current far west end - 13th and Lindeke.

It was the first real chance I've had to take the monkey off pavement and I was being blown away by how well those massive tires were just rolling over everything in their path and the stability of the whole setup, and I was also seriously enjoying riding in daylight. So by the time I came to what looked like this muddy section, I was feelin' my oats and decided to just power through it. It wasn't until I got to the other side that I became aware of the stench. The smell and the texture of the goop were just so out of place that my mind was having a hard time processing it.

I rode on to the Fish Lake Trailhead. The ride was full of wonderful scenic distractions, but I still couldn't stop thinking about the mud bog. Was that horse shit I was smelled? I know enough about horse shit to know that it smelled like horse shit. In fact I could still smell it because it was all over my bike. I was denying it for all I was worth, but the realization that I had ridden through a pond of liquid horse shit was setting in. WTF.

By the time I came back through, I was beginning to accept reality. It was at this point that I began to feel very sorry for one of the riders before me that obviously hadn't made it through.

But to be honest, I didn't have much time for sympathy, because I was overloaded with questions. How and why is this poop pond sitting in the middle of the FLT?

I got off my bike and headed off trail. The liquid poop mess was coming from the uphill side of the trail (seriously good detective work here). There's a house (horse ranch?) directly above the cesspool and there is goop all over the hillside. I don't know enough about the operation of a ranch to know if there is some common method of dealing with manure that involves suspending it in liquid and then flushing it down a hill next to your ranch. It is hard for me to imagine that this a-hole could possibly be oblivious to what he is doing, so is it intentional? Is he anti-FLT and this is his form of protest? Hmmm. Wow. Hmmm.

I decided to take some deep breaths and let it go. (Actually, the deep breaths were involuntary. But I did let it go.) I came off the FLT and since I was in the neighborhood, I decided to figure out exactly how flawed the advice was that I offered Jacque, regarding his route to work. He's been trying to pedal a trailer full of fireman's gear up the Sunset Hill without ending up plastered to the grill of a Yukon. David Blaine and I volunteered basically the same alternate route.

But as I was looking at the map, I realized that I had never ridden all the way straight up Rosamond, which judging from the map, feeds right back into Sunset Hwy at the top. Sweet! I must have missed the Dead End sign.

You can keep going, sans pavement, but probably not if you're pulling a trailer.

The poo flood occurs every time that there is prodigious amounts of rain. I have not done any investigation but it shouldn't be hard to trace the origins. Regardless, the old rail line is not the property of the poo owner so this is some kind of violation of the law

My first ride on the FLT was this weekend. I rode partially through the wildlife refuge and then turned back to meet my wife for the EWU game in Cheney.

We should report the livestock sewage spill to the County, or whoever has jurisdiction. Do you think the County is the proper contact? It seems to be an excessive amount and definitely violating some code or regulation.

Thanks for the feedback, guys. I think I'll do some looking into complainin'. I've been giving this a lot of thought, trying to be reasonable, consider different viewpoints, understand that things work a little different in the country, live and let live, you know . . . but a situation that allows excrement to flow across a public path everytime it rains hard seems asinine to me. I'll let you know if I find out anything worthwhile.

If you want to get in a ride AND get the Monkey off road a bit, we are riding to the CX race at 7 Mile Saturday. We will meet at Rocket Bakery, I'm guessing 9ish. Let me know and I'll get a more accurate time for you.